Wilco- Lone Wolf 17

by Geoff Wolak

  An hour’s walk brought us to a dark ridge above a road running north-south, some traffic seen below, a garage below with a brightly lit café, men sat around eating, armed men. I called Carlos and checked, and he had no men in this area sat around stuffing their faces. He warned me that they were, most likely, people smugglers, the most common form of animal to be found on this road - next to hungry coyotes.

  In pairs and teams we inched lower, Stretch being my right-hand man. At 300yards I halted the men and had them spread out.

  When ready, I transmitted, ‘Tomo, there are twelve men. I’ll give you twenty-four seconds for a bonus, to kill them all. Fire when ready.’

  I could see him move forwards and kneel, take aim, a big breath heaved before the first long-casing 7.62mm blasted out, a man sent flying into the road. Fourteen fast rounds later, and none of the men were moving, several having been hit when running, and now the café area was awash with blood, men missing half a head to be seen making a mess on the road.

  I turned my head left. ‘Sergeant Major, did he do OK?’

  ‘Should have swapped the mag for cheaper rounds. I’ll bill him when I get back – from his bonus.’

  Laughter rippled around the men.

  I stood, ‘Move out.’

  Cautiously now, and eye on the road, I walked the line half a mile south, dipped down a track, and we crossed the quiet road without incident, up a ridge and soon tracking north again. Opposite the café, Nicholson stopped to have a good look.

  He reported, ‘There’s an old woman washing down the blood, and stealing watches. She’s going through their pockets.’

  Rocko’s black outline noted, ‘I think they failed to tip her enough for the fried chicken.’

  Moving off north, we left the carnage behind and moved up a gentle hill, the breeze freshening, and we used a cold hour to move northeast.

  Walking down a track, I heard a noise and spotted something, someone laying in the track. I knelt, the teams knelt. ‘Injured person up ahead, all round defence. Stay sharp.’

  With Stretch at my side, Rizzo and Rocko close by, I moved forwards, torch out, and found a dead body, an old lady, no shoes on her.

  ‘She never made that sound, she’s been dead a day,’ I whispered.

  ‘What she doing up here?’ Rizzo asked.

  ‘Migrants heading to the border, maybe with an escort, but if she was alone then the men in that café would have robbed her and left her for dead. Torches on, search in pairs, be careful, but I think it’s just wounded civvies.’

  Ten minutes of careful searching through the waist-high scrub resulted in ‘Here!’ and many of us rushed over. I slung my rifle and knelt, torch out, finding a heavily pregnant woman about to give birth, her moist vagina exposed to the cold night sky.

  ‘Poncho, rope, make a stretcher!’ I hissed.

  ‘Why are you speaking English?’ she asked, an Hispanic woman around thirty years old.

  ‘Why do you understand English?’ I counted with as I checked her pulse.

  ‘I’m a doctor.’

  ‘A doctor?’ Rizzo queried. ‘What the fuck you doing out here, Luv?’

  ‘I was … trying to cross the border … with others, but … they we were attacked and robbed.’ She coughed. ‘When they saw I was pregnant … they took my pack and my water.’

  ‘What a bunch of cunts, eh,’ Rizzo noted as the poncho was threaded in haste.

  ‘Why are English soldiers here? You are not American.’

  ‘This is not the border,’ I told her. ‘That’s ten miles north. You’re still in bandit country.’

  Six hands eased her over onto the poncho, ropes lifted, our lady about to get carried to the road. Lifting her up, I encouraged the men on.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I asked her as we trekked west.

  ‘Originally, I was from Panama.’

  ‘We just came from Panama,’ Nicholson told her. ‘La Palma, south.’

  ‘I was born near there.’

  ‘Small world, eh,’ I quipped. ‘Why the long trek north, and pregnant!’

  ‘After qualifying I worked in Panama City, then Nicaragua, where I met my husband.’ She went quiet, sobs heard as we lugged her through the scrub. ‘He was killed after operating on a gang member. They thought I had seen the gang members, so they came after me and I fled, four months pregnant.

  ‘I have friends in America, but … it would have taken time to get a medical licence for America, and not till after the birth. I used what money we had with people smugglers to get here, but they left us and drove off, yesterday.’

  ‘Right fucking spot, this is,’ Rizzo noted as we struggled through the scrub.

  ‘Contractions?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but they’ve eased, so I think I have a day.’

  ‘And your plan was … what?’ I asked.

  ‘If I survived the birth, I would walk with the baby.’

  ‘What a fucked up country,’ Rizzo noted.

  ‘What will you do with me?’ she asked, sounding worried.

  ‘Get you some good medical help’ I assured her.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘That’s not easy to explain, just … deliver the baby, recover, then we can talk about your future plans. Don’t worry, concentrate on the baby. They can feel stress.’

  ‘You are medically trained?’

  ‘Yes. And I have a daughter, another on the way.’

  Rizzo put in, ‘He got the same woman pregnant, twice, and she don’t want him around, he just sends money. How dumb is that!’

  The men carrying our pregnant lady laughed quietly through the dark as we crested the ridge and started down.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘Me neither,’ I told her.

  After twenty minutes we were sweating, and we rotated with other men, the Russians coming up to have a go.

  Our patient heard the name, Petrov. ‘You are Petrov?’ she gasped.

  ‘I am Petrov from La Palma, at your service.’

  ‘My god, my uncle tells me stories about you, he still lives near there. You are a national hero of Panama.’

  ‘I killed many drug dealers, and shot the FARC,’ I told her as we moved down a track. ‘All things that I enjoyed doing; no one needed to force me or to pay me.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The same, exactly the same; we will find the men that abandoned you, and kill them.’

  ‘I think we already did,’ Rocko quipped. ‘We interrupted their fried chicken.’

  ‘Actually, yes, they may well have been the same gang. Pro-active vengeance.’ I took out my phone and called Carlos, to send jeeps to the road below.

  ‘You have wounded?’

  ‘No, we have a pregnant lady about to give birth.’

  ‘Why bring her here?’

  ‘If I repeated what you just said to your wife and mother…’

  After a pause came, ‘We shall offer every assistance, of course, I was just curious.’

  ‘Of course. Send the jeeps, and get a doctor and a nurse, a midwife, and fast.’

  Half an hour of slow slog down the sandy soil brought us to the road, jeeps arriving, and I recognised Rada, our pregnant lady loaded into the back of a jeep.

  ‘Take very good care of her, or I shall be upset.’

  He flinched. ‘I will look after her, yes, don’t worry.’

  ‘Take her to Carlos.’

  With the jeeps turning and heading off I led the team back up the slope, much faster than coming down.

  ‘I want to kill some of these shits,’ Rizzo loudly stated, Nicholson echoing that sentiment.

  ‘Then let’s go find some,’ I told them. ‘Night is young.’

  Past the dead old lady we picked up the pace, seeing distant lights, and half an hour of going up and down gullies brought us to a small camp of jeeps, four bodies seen to be on the floor and illuminated in the jeep headlights. As we took aim a man was shot in the head by his captors.

&nb
sp; I transmitted, ‘Rizzo, Rocko, Nicholson, aim at the men. Tomo, destroy the jeeps. Standby, Nicholson fire first, rest join in.’

  Nicholson took the top half of a man’s head off, the crackle increasing, six men sent flying before the firing eased, Tomo still destroying jeeps for twenty seconds, one set alight.

  ‘On me,’ I called, and I led them north, around the ridge and looking back, just in case anyone was hiding. I counted four jeeps and six dead men. Not enough bodies. ‘Go to ground, look for someone hiding, dead quiet.’

  Waiting, we chilled a little, a coyote crying out from a distant hill. I full fifteen minutes later movement was seen.

  ‘Hold it,’ I transmitted.

  We waited.

  Two men returned to the jeeps, no others seen, and they started to try and get a jeep going. But Tomo had hit the engine, so it was a futile attempt.

  ‘Tomo, Nicholson, kill them.’

  The windscreen turned white, large holes seen, two shots for two men, large holes in chests being the result. I waited five minutes, no movement seen, so we left behind one burning jeep, three damaged jeeps, and eight bodies. I had to wonder if coyotes ate carrion.

  Trekking north then east we came across a line of weary migrants and hid, observing them pass. They trudged on, heads down, and I wondered if they would make it across, be robbed and killed, or be turned back by a border guard. And were there pregnant women in the column of black outlines?

  With the column now distant we moved quietly past and east, a village seen, strung out along the road. From the black scrub we moved closer, to within 200yards, a café and a bar seen, jeeps parked up, armed men moving around.

  ‘Rizzo, Rocko, see if your aim is any good after that long flight here.’

  ‘My arse is still numb,’ Rizzo complained.

  They moved forwards, found a low stone wall and got comfy as a dog barked our way from just fifty yards away. And it kept barking till Rocko silenced it.

  ‘That was cruel,’ Nicholson noted. ‘He shot that poor dog.’

  Rizzo fired, a man taking a piss at the dark rear of the bar hit, that man’s cock still out as he slid down the wall. Rocko fired, a man seen tumbling from the roof and loudly smashing onto a jeep.

  ‘What the fuck was that!’ I complained.

  ‘He was looking this way, what with the dog barking,’ Rocko explained as men piled out of the bar.

  Six fast shots, and six men were down, several seen crawling. I set automatic, and with no silencer on I stood and blasted at the bar windows, a hell of a racket created, the windows all broken, the patrons hit with flying glass.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Rocko teased as everyone joined in, the jeeps hit, windows hit, neon signs hit.

  The firing eased as Nicholson knelt laughing. ‘Very professional.’

  ‘Move out!’ I hissed, running south, men heard following, and I keenly put 600yards between where we now were and where we had been, a few cracks heard on the breeze. Running down a smooth and well-worn track we hit the road and crossed, up the other side and to a low ridge, soon grouped.

  Knelt, and warm now for the exercise, I could see armed men moving around cover to cover near the cafe. ‘Nicholson, Tomo, hit the armed men, slow and steady.’

  Four blasts later, and six minutes later, four men were down, no other armed men seen, a few civvies scurrying for cover.

  ‘Convoy behind us!’ came from Sasha.

  ‘Get ready,’ I transmitted. ‘Get some good cover.’

  Glancing around us, I noticed that we had the benefit of a stone wall around a crop, and at least a hundred yards between us and the road, a ditch next to the road. I turned my head left and could see the jeep convoy approaching, wondering if their approach was in response to the shooting here. I figured it more likely that they were unrelated, and just passing through.

  ‘Nicholson, who’s in those jeeps?’

  ‘Third jeep back has armed men sat in it, last jeep has a mounted fifty cal.’

  ‘Nicholson, Tomo, last jeep first. Rest of you get ready. Men on the left start at the rear and work forwards, men on the right at the front, wait my first shot. Sasha, put a man up the ridge behind us.’

  I glanced up the dark slope as the roar of tyres on tarmac grew, no movement or lights seen, soon taking aim at a tyre in motion. When I could wait no longer I fired, the tyre blowing, the jeep swerving under control, it’s driver soon hit in the face – the jeep no longer under control. It hit a parked car with a loud smash, an insurance claim to follow from an angry householder.

  The roar of cracks rose quickly as I panned left and looked for men to hit, but I was beaten to it time and again, killing just one man that jumped down, my lads doing the work for me.

  I transmitted, ‘Hit tyres and engines.’

  Three jeeps were soon alight, and I was soon leading them off up the slope and east. At the high point I called a halt, men allowed to eat corned beef from the tins, no lights allowed.

  Sat on a rock near me, Rizzo noted, ‘These boys are a bit crap.’

  ‘They’re not soldiers, they intimidate people in bars … and come around to where you live at night.’

  Rocko put it, ‘Ten years back I would have done anything to avoid being in this fucking place, saw it all on the TV, but they’re crap at the job.’

  ‘There’s also no unity here,’ I told their dark outlines. ‘They kill each other, they don’t work together. Carlos has a good team, that’s why he’s survived all this time. These small local gangs … not a clue.’

  ‘And they rob women and old ladies,’ Rizzo snarled. ‘Not real men, not to do that.’

  ‘Fuck no,’ Rocko agreed. ‘They’re tough with a gun in their hands, not so tough otherwise.’

  ‘They must be confused by us,’ I put in. ‘They can’t see us, and they can’t fucking intimidate us.’

  ‘Pssstt,’ came from Sasha. We looked down the slope north, a line of migrants plodding along.

  ‘This place is like fucking Oxford Street, London!’ Rizzo complained.

  ‘How far is the border?’ Rocko asked.

  ‘Ten miles or less. They get dropped off here and walk, thousands of them every year.’

  My sat phone trilled. Carlos. ‘We have the lady here, doctor and nurse here, my … wife and mother assisting.’

  ‘They’ve been through it all before. Your poor mother suffered you as a child!’

  ‘What did she tell you?’ he asked, but I had made that up.

  ‘That you got better as you got older,’ I lied.

  ‘Well, everyone gets better as they get older. Miguel was difficult as a child, better after thirteen.’

  ‘That lady is a doctor, so she can advise you on what she needs.’

  ‘Yes, I have been talking with her. Four months to get here, kidnapped twice, her travelling companions all killed. She was shocked that it was you, very shocked. Her life was saved by the legendary Petrov, a story for the papers.’

  Off the phone, I said, ‘A story for the papers.’

  ‘You what?’ Stretch asked.

  ‘Propaganda,’ I enigmatically answered.

  My phone trilled after I took a piss, the Deputy Chief. ‘Can you talk?’ he quietly asked.

  ‘Yes, fine this end.’

  ‘What the fuck did you do!’ he shouted.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘CNN just showed Mexicans, on the Mexican border, erecting a barbed wire fence!’

  I smiled. ‘That was what you said you wanted.’

  ‘I was joking, you asshole! It’s fucking coast to coast on the news! How much did you spend?’

  ‘Carlos wanted to give me a hundred grand -’

  ‘A hundred grand on barbed wire? That’ll buy a shit load of barbed wire! They interviewed a rancher whose land runs up to the border, and he filmed armed men erecting the fence section. At the moment no one knows who’s doing it, or why.’

  ‘Not your concern anyhow.’

  ‘It is when you’re near the border
and CNN is running it coast to coast! They’ll be asking questions.’

  ‘I doubt they’ll get answers from Carlos or his men.’

  ‘And when the government in Mexico City sees it?’

  ‘They’ll be confused, very confused. But I doubt that they would take it down.’

  ‘What else have you been up to?’

  ‘We’ve been thinning out the local gangs.’

  ‘I got the first intercepts today, NSA got them, reports of local gangs shot up, hidden snipers killing people in your area.’

  ‘Killing armed men only,’ I emphasised. ‘And I doubt it will make CNN.’

  ‘Probably not; reporting killings south of the border is old news. But are you about to do something that will cause me some lost sleep?’

  ‘No, we’ll just spend a week or two thinning out the gangs, to help Carlos to help Tomsk. Don’t worry, what could go wrong, eh.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out.’

  I led the teams east, and after forty minutes my phone trilled.

  ‘Can you talk, Comrade Petrov?’ It was kidnap victim Miller.

  ‘Why does everyone start with “comrade”, Petrov is not a Soviet?’

  ‘Just in case someone else answers your phone.’

  ‘They won’t, don’t worry.’

  ‘We knew, and we know, where you are, so when CNN showed the laying of barbed wire on the border we all stood staring at the TV, dumbfounded. Shocked. Puzzled. Hence the call, to ease our dumfoundedness.’

  ‘I once spoke to the CIA about the border, and asked what they might wish to achieve, and they jokingly said they wanted more barbed wire. And a short while ago I got a loud and angry call from the Deputy Chief, since he also figured it was me.’

  He laughed. ‘It’s coast to coast, the guy in the White House left speechless. He was at a meeting when a journalist asked about it, his National Security Advisor thinking it a joke.’

  ‘It is a joke, aimed at the CIA, so run with it. But earlier, someone gave me an idea, for some publicity for good old Petrov, a.k.a. Robin Hood.’

  ‘You should organise a National Petrov Day!’

  I paused, thinking. ‘What a great idea.’

  ‘What? You can’t, I was joking!’